[oblio]

True, but even in the UK, I imagine that once you have the money, the next generation will be integrated, if you want to. You'll live in the right neighborhood, your kids will go to the right schools, problem solved.

It's just slower and doesn't include you directly, true.

[cjs_ac]

Oh no, 'climbing the greasy pole' takes at least three generations. The 'right neighbourhood' is itself a complicated concept, because the working and middle classes in the UK live cheek-by-jowl. I live in a street of rundown Victorian working-class houses that are so close to each other and the street that everyone has net curtains in their windows to stop passers-by from seeing in, but from my bedroom window I can see into the back gardens of the comfortable 1930s middle-class houses in the next street, which have leafy front gardens to provide privacy. As for schools, much of the middle-middle class and all of the upper-middle and upper class pay fees to educate their children at private schools, some of which charge more than a software engineer's salary in annual fees.

[DoughnutHole]

It takes many generations, really.

Having money doesn’t easily buy you a hereditary lordship. You might be able to buy a load of land but probably not a prestigious ancient estate because the families that own them would usually rather let them fall into disrepair than sell them.

Money will buy your kids a place in prestigious public (read: private) school so they can rub shoulders with upper class kids and have connections when they grow up. But those upper class friends will always know that you and your kids are really just jumped up middle class since your great great great great grandfather wasn’t the Duke of Norfolk or some such.

For reference Kate Middleton’s family are wealthy multi-millionaires, and have been wealthy going back to the 19th century. When she married Prince William the press still waxed lyrical about the fact that the Prince of Wales was marrying a “commoner”.

Really the only rock solid way to wash away the middle class stink from your kids is to marry into the real top level of the upper class.